Shinshu Mars

Distillery Bottlings

By now, every person and their dog pretty much knows about Suntory’s and Nikka’s whisky, but there’s a handful of other Japanese distilleries which you don’t tend to see quite so often. Shinshu Mars is one such distillery. Opened relatively recently in 1985 (just as the Japanese whisky industry was about to enter a serious decline), the distillery is located in the Japanese alps, 798 metres above sea level in the small town of Miyada. Parent company Hombo Shuzo had produced a variety of alcoholic beverages in the decades before hand, including whisky at the Kagoshima distillery which operated from 1953 until 1985 producing ‘Satsuma Whisky’.